LAWYERS for 2Day FM could get around the need to have had consent to air the royal hospital prank by arguing that the nurse who answered the call from the presenters was not identifiable to listeners.

But the station would not be able to use that defence when it comes to the surveillance act, which bans the recording of private conversations without the agreement of everyone on the call, lawyers say.

How hard the station tried to get consent and why it went ahead without it will be some of the questions the Australian Communications and Media Authority must seek to answer as it investigates it.

2Day FM hosts Mel Greig and Michael Christian were given details of the Duchess of Cambridge’s condition after making a prank phone call to the hospital where she is being treated for acute morning sickness.

Executives at Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, have refused to answer many questions about station procedure.

Lawyer Justine Munsie, a partner at Addisons Lawyers, said consent would be a key question but the rule was that a station must not broadcast the words of an "identifiable" person without their consent.

Londoners express sadness at the suspected suicide of a nurse who answered a prank call from an Australian radio station about pregnant British royal Kate. Simon Hanna reports.

"There's a big question about whether each of the nurses will fall within the description of an identifiable person," she said. "If you look at that question without the benefit of hindsight, it's hard to see how they were identifiable in Australia at the time of the broadcast.

"It might be that the ACMA want to look at whether they did breach the provisions of the Surveillance Devices Act, which is the one that says you can't record private conversations without consent."

A video claiming to be from Anonymous sends a message to 2DayFM to immediately sack Mel Greig and Michael Christian

Lawyer Julian Burnside QC, who assisted ACMA's precursor, the Australian Broadcasting Authority, during the cash for comment inquiry, said on-air announcers should be accountable for content broadcast under their watch.

The deejays who made the call, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, said the decision about airing prank calls was out of their hands, prompting some within the station to accuse them of "playing dumb".

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.